“My name is Nevile,” answered Marmaduke, with straightforward brevity. “Mistress Sibyll Warner told me of this house, where I come for an hour’s shelter to my companion, the Lady Anne, daughter of the Earl of Warwick.”
Marmaduke resigned his charge to an old woman, who was the nurse in that sick-chamber, and who lifted the hood and chafed the pale, cold hands of the young maiden; the knight then strode to the recess. The Lady of Longueville was on the bed of death—an illness of two days had brought her to the brink of the grave; but there was in her eye and countenance a restless and preternatural animation, and her voice was clear and shrill, as she said,—
“Why does the daughter of Warwick, the Yorkist, seek refuge in the house of the fallen and childless Lancastrian?”
“Swear by thy hopes in Christ that thou will tend and guard her while I seek the earl, and I reply.”
“Stranger, my name is Longueville, my birth noble,—those pledges of hospitality and trust are stronger than hollow oaths. Say on!”
“Because, then,” whispered the knight, after waving the bystanders from the spot, “because the earl’s daughter flies dishonour in a king’s palace, and her insulter is the king!”
Before the dying woman could reply, Anne, recovered by the cares of the experienced nurse, suddenly sprang to the recess, and kneeling by the bedside, exclaimed wildly,—“Save me! bide me! save me!”
“Go and seek the earl, whose right hand destroyed my house and his lawful sovereign’s throne,—go! I will live till he arrives!” said the childless widow, and a wild gleam of triumph shot over her haggard features.